/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.9349789]

Did anyone grow up thinking their parents were financial wizards and then learned that they were in fact retarded but just got lucky?

My dad is a Senior Engineer and we moved from Russia to the Silicon Valley in the 90s. He did well and went from renting to buying a nice home in 2002ish. He sold it in 2016 a few years after I moved out and there was enough profit to pay off most of the second flat he bought for my brother and finance a nice house in Morgan Hill where he retired.

So far so great. It's only recently I learned the details of how we sold that house.
> "family friend" IE Russian realtor pressures them to sell
> Market is booming, houses listing for millions and being bid up to 2-3x asking price.
> Parents get home appraisal, ~2mil
> Realtor calls it optimistic and pressures to list for 1.8
> Uhh ok?
> Lists, sells in ONE HOUR to first responder
> 1.6m cash lowballer.
> Doesn't ask, doesn't tell them it's 1.6, just tells them it's sold and they don't notice 200k difference until they get the check.
> parents happily pay 15% commission since she's such a good friend
> Realtor "friend" sells house she could have easily bid up to 3mil for 1.6, walks off with 200k.
> Didn't bother selling house for what it was worth because she couldn't be assed to put in more than an hour of work.
> Parents totally satisfied and recommend her to others.
> 1.5 star yelp reviews and she finally went out of business recently.
> They still don't thing they got scammed because "Russians always look out for each other".

I swear it was the most retarded thing. I didn't know much about finance or the home market at the time but I could tell she was screwing us.
Best part is that she was going on a riad trip but didn't have a car, so being good friends my parents let her borrow mine without asking. It came back with multiple parking tickets, bridge tolls and a shredded 3rd gear.